Edgar Wright has Shot a Test Reel for Ant-Man

On the heels of this afternoon’s news (or, to be more accurate, rumors) that Marvel had chosen the “Guardians of the Galaxy” as one of their two 2014 movie titles (the other being “Captain America 2″), comes this actual news that Edgar Wright, long attached to direct “Ant-Man” for Marvel, has actually moved a step closer to making the movie and shot and finished a test reel.

Now before you get too excited, just know that test reels are pretty common in Hollywood, especially on films that plan on either breaking new ground in terms of visuals, or has expensive CG shots. Zack Snyder shot a test battle scene for “300” to show studio suits what he was going for, and Jonathan Liebesman did likewise before getting the greenlight on “Battle: Los Angeles”. Those films both eventually went into production, and in the case of “300”, even ended up on one of the film’s Blu-ray releases.

According to industry trade THR, Edgar Wright has shot a test reel to show off the “potential look and tone of his movie, as well as to decide how convincing Ant-man’s powers look onscreen.” Now it’ll be up to the Marvel suits to decide how to proceed, though if this afternoon’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” rumor pans out, it might still have to wait until 2015, at the earliest. Of course, that’s if the “Guardians of the Galaxy” rumor proves true.

The fact that Wright had to shoot a test reel might be because the idea of an “Ant-Man” movie is just, well, odd. He was never exactly the most popular character in the Marvel pantheon, and although he’s been on the roster of some pretty big super teams (The Avengers being one), Ant-Man is, well, Ant-Man. You know, the guy who shrinks down to the size of an ant. I wouldn’t be surprise if the suits, like me, couldn’t really figure out how all that was going to work and needed convincing.

In any case, if you were going to make a superhero movie as potentially “odd” as Ant-Man, Edgar Wright is certainly the ideal director. Wright, who co-wrote the film script with “Attack the Block’s” Joe Cornish, is most known for the zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead”, but he recently directed “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”, which would seem to have a similar vibe and tone to a would-be “Ant-Man” movie.